Debi Lets The Good Times Roll

As denizens of the Great Northeast in these here United States know all too well, March weather is notoriously fickle. That’s also true for other phenomena. This year in particular is turbulent with current events, but it’s nice to know that some time-honored traditions still hold strong. Well, maybe not everywhere.

Speaking of which, it’s been eons since we’ve heard from our fave fam, The Snotenlockers, not to mention The Debi herself. Let’s check them out, shall we? The Real Housewife of East Hogwash discovers that there’s no such thing as a Fat-Free Tuesday in this little ditty we like to call


Debi Lets the Good Times Roll

by Aunt Shecky

All Rights Reserved

I wish that husband of mine would let me express my loving concern about his health. Honestly, Brad can be so pig-headed. Or maybe it’s bull-headed. Whenever I tell him that he’s pigging out on snacks, he gives me a line of bull.

I asked him to look at the calendar. “What day is tomorrow?”

Even a casual observer could see a distinct change of color in Brad’s ears. Some redness in the bottom of his lobes shot up like a cartoon thermometer in July. I could almost hear a little frantic voice inside his head:
“Ohmygod. What’d I forget? I already missed Valentines. What? Her birthday? Anniversary? What? What?”

“Let me give you a hint. It’s Wednesday, but a special one.”

“Uh, is there going to be a TV marathon of car insurance commercials featuring camels?

“No, Brad, you heathen. It’s Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.”

I’d like to think that eternal matters mean something to my bitter half, but I have to say whenever Brad hears the word “spirituality,” he thinks of a woman in a turban sitting in front of a crystal ball.

I tried to nudge his memory. “Remember when you were a little kid and had to give up eating candy for 40 days?”

“Yeah. And by the time the Easter Bunny finally came I couldn’t wait to tear into the basket he brought me! At last! Chocolate! Oh, boy!”

“Well, it involved a little more than that,” I explained. “We were supposed to do penance for our sins and practice self-denial.” Self-denial is an unknown concept for Brad I’m afraid. For instance, it would be useless to tell him to refrain from eating between meals when he eats just one meal a day—all day long.

Lenten customs were really strict for our parents. You couldn’t eat meat on Fridays, not just on Good Friday or Fridays during Lent — every Friday. That was a big deal in the Fifties. Back then nobody was a vegetarian unless he was a health nut or a body builder. You’d see grainy black and white photos of these guys in the back of comic books. They’d be all muscle bound, but their faces were a sea of wrinkles. But times change.

Meanwhile down in the Nether Regions two maintenance demons (aka “dirt devils”) were cleaning up a recently-vacated dungeon. “We’ve haven’t had this many vacancies since all those Friday meat-eaters got sprung in Sixty-six. Wow, this is the fifth inmate to be paroled this week.”

“Hey, get used to it,” his co-worker said. “If they keep legalizing marijuana there’ll be a mass exodus out of here like nobody’s business. It’ll look like audiences leaving a screening of Gotti.”

“Lent, huh,” Brad scoffed. “Bummer.”

“Well, the good news is we can have one last blast before the Days of Atonement. Mardi gras! “

“We’re flying to New Orleans?”

“What are you, deranged? Maybe its not going to be a big blowout, but we’re going to have our very own version right here in East Hogwash Rent-a-Center Rentacenter.”

Ah-OOH-GAH! AH-OOH-GAH!!

Brad jumped up so high you’d think he’d had actually played basketball at some time in his life. “What the hell was that?”

“Oh, it’s just the Repeating Joke Alarm. Ignore it. So as I was saying, we ought to go down there tonight and —“

“Oh, Deb, do I have to? Why don’t you ask Milwaukee to go with you?”

I knew enough not to ask Milwaukee, my daughter from a previous relationship, to do anything with me. She always has plans, which usually involve a full night of texting her friends. They never do anything but text each other. I don’t know what they text each other about. Texting?

“Come on, Brad. It’ll be fun. I mean, how many chances are we gonna have to go out together, just you and me?”

Since the triplets have been away in the medium security, er, boarding school, we’ve haven’t really taken the opportunity to do something without having to hire a baby sitter, that is some new gal in town who hasn’t gotten the word about Trip, Trap, and Trick. But another semester or so they’ll be home again. Good thing their leaving the place doesn’t depend on good behavior or they’d be there till the next Ice Age.

“So, what do you say, Brad? Admission is pretty cheap, it’s for a worthy cause. It says on the flyer that ‘The majority of the proceeds are to benefit St. Hilarius Middle School.’ ”

“Gee, Deb, I don’t know.” Brad stroked his chin like Brian Keith and Fred MacMurray on the ancient sitcoms run on off-brand cable channels. I must admit that Brad is a little conflicted about parochial schools since he was a little boy. I’m told he’d act up in class in front of the nuns and the secular staff members. When he mouthed off — say with some wisecrack about the “lay” teachers -- the sisters would draw a circle on the blackboard and tell him it represented his doomed soul.

Years later when we were thinking about sending the boys to a parochial school, Brad said, “I don’t want to pay tuition for some stranger to tell my kids they’re going to hell. That’s the parents’ job!”

Ah-OOH-GAH! AH-OOH-GAH!

“There it goes again! For cripesakes, Debi, can’t you stop it?”

“I don’t know– take the battery out.”

It took a little convincing to get Brad to take me, but he finally relented. I think it had something to do with my threatening to call the cable company and cancelling ESPN.

So later that evening we dressed in the best attire we could find that still fit and wasn’t ripped, stained , or frayed. Then we headed downtown.

I had to hand it to the organizers of the event. Class all the way. There was valet parking. Or I think it was. Brad handed the car keys to a guy who jumped behind the wheel. It was a little weird, though. He gunned the engine and started speeding north on US 4 ,instead of proceeding to parking lot “P” (as in “Pneumonia.”)

Ah-OOH-GAH! Ah-OOH-GAH!

(That wasn’t the car horn. That was the Rentacenter’s Industrial Strength Repeating Joke Alarm.)

There was even a doorman, whose regular gig was as a bouncer for the Dew Drop Inn over on Route 67. I’m not saying Brad frequents the place,
but he and Dylan “The Squid” Calamari hugged each other as if they were reuniting twins who had been separated at birth.

“Squiddy! How great to see ya! How long has it been?”

Squiddy checked the time on his cellphone and shrugged. “Don’t know. Hour, hour and a half?”

Inside the vibe was festiive. Many of the folks were wearing masks—not the Halloween kind, the kind Tom Cruise and his buddies wore in Eyes Wide Shut. But unlike the masquerade in that dirty movie, the East Hogwash version was definitely G-rated. I heard that since the nationwide change in attitudes toward women lately, the authentic New Orleans version might be losing its some of its bawdiness.

Meanwhile, atop a float on Bourbon Street two “Krewe” members waved to the crowd. “Mais,miss the old days, uh-Huh. Flingin’ dem beads to the mamselles, liftin’ up dem shirts high.”

“Mais oui, now we lucky to see stretch marks. Appendectomy scars. Uh-huh.”

“Want beads can get ‘em down for the Dollah Store. Tree strands pour une piastre. Mon Dieu!”

The organizers from St. Hilarius had gone all out with a live (more or less) band: Zeke Garabedian and the East Hogwash Sodkickers. I don’t know how authentic the music was, but it sure was loud.

Brad was underimpressed. “An accordion? Seriously?”

“Oh, Brad, lighten up. At least it’s not bagpipes.”

Ah-OOH-GAH! Ah-OOH-GAH!

“Yeah. I know what you mean. Who needs bagpipes when you got a Repeated Joke Alarm. I don’t know about you. But I’m hungry. I wanna try me one of those New Orleans treats. What d’ya call ‘em — a bidet.”

“ What?” Brad had me confused. “Oh! I think you mean a beignet. I heard the lunch ladies from St. Hilarius put on a mean spread.”

“So I heard. When they made the jambalaya they couldn’t afford shrimp. So they substituted store-brand fish sticks.”

And that’s why the motto for Mardi Gras is Laissez les bon temps Rolaids!”